Saturday, November 5, 2011

Open letter from Alaa's mother to the Head of Military Judiciary

The Head of Military Judiciary, General Adel Al-Morsy, has stated that Alaa is facing charges relating to the Maspero Incident that include: theft of military weaponry, destruction of military property, violence against public employees and members of the armed forces entrusted with public service, public gathering and violence against members of the armed forces.

Here I wonder: Does the General really believe that those charges can be taken seriously? I have many reasons to be suspicious, but for now I will only go into one: the manner in which Alaa was summoned to appear in front of the Military Prosecutor.

On Sunday the 23rd of October, i.e. two weeks after the Maspero events, the Military Prosecutor sent a letter to Alaa requesting his appearance on Tuesday the 25th of October. His lawyers informed the Military Prosecutor that Alaa was abroad, and so the date was postponed to Sunday October 30th.

What happened on 30th of October has been gone over repeatedly, so I'll not take up your time, General, nor the readers', by repeating them.

Then, on Thursday November 3rd the Military Court rejected an appeal by Alaa against the decision to keep him in custody for 15 days - pending investigations in the Maspero case.

Alaa's accusations again were pored over again in the media, when this decision was announced.

So here's my question: the Military Prosecutor suspects that Alaa has stolen military weaponry. What's the usual response to such cases? The naive among us may think that a force would urgently and immediately be dispatched to arrest him and search his home and other places in search of the weapons allegedly stolen.

But the Prosecutor didn't take any such action. He sends him a letter, two weeks after the events, that very politely requests him to show up day after tomorrow, and if he can’t, then let's do it one week later. No problem.

How can the General explain this rather novel conduct on the part of the Prosecutor?